


like tomorrow could wait

by janeives (orphan_account)



Category: DC Extended Universe, Shazam! (2019)
Genre: Billy Batson Needs a Hug, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Self Deprecating Humor, Sharing a Bed, also because he's freddy's fave and we love the best boy w the best taste!, brief mentions of bad past foster homes, freddy freeman will not give it to him but he will offer some sage words of wisdom, references to dceu clark because i miss him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 03:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18460613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/janeives
Summary: Freddy huffs out something that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. "Okay, Not Crying. I'm Freddy, and this is my room too, you know, and I'm trying to sleep. And man, I get that you're in the middle of a brooding,woe-is-mesob sesh, because you definitely seem like the type, and I sympathize. I really do! But I can't exactly climb up there and give you a pat on the back, so I suggest you get down here before I call Victor and Rosa in here to coddle you to death. And no, that is not an empty threat."And yeah, Billy believes that — if he's learned anything about Freddy thus far, it's that words are his most effective tool.Or: On his first night in the Vasquez household, Billy angsts. Freddy tries his hand at comfort.





	like tomorrow could wait

Probably the only thing worse than crying on the first night in a new foster home, Billy thinks, is not even realizing you're crying until your new foster brother interrupts you from the bottom bunk to make sure you're not dying or something. One second he's staring at a flaking spot of paint on the ceiling, feeling pretty apathetic towards everyone and everything in this house, and the next he's blinking away hot tears, bewildered.

"Are you crying?" Freddy's sleepy voice cuts through the dark, and Billy is so startled by it he clams up mid-sob, trying to ease the noise back into his throat. His chest shudders with the effort.

"'Cause it's okay if you are," continues Freddy. "Seriously, totally cool. Everyone does it. I cried my first night too, you know. Not a lot or anything, but -"

Billy cuts in, equal parts flustered and annoyed, "I'm not crying."

Freddy huffs out something that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. "Okay, Not Crying. I'm Freddy, and this is my room too, you know, and I'm trying to sleep. And man, I get that you're in the middle of a brooding, _woe-is-me_ sob sesh, because you definitely seem like the type, and I sympathize. I really do! But I can't exactly climb up there and give you a pat on the back, so I suggest you get down here before I call Victor and Rosa in here to coddle you to death. And no, that is not an empty threat."

And yeah, Billy believes that — if he's learned anything about Freddy thus far, it's that words are his most effective tool.

Billy scrubs at his raw, runny nose with his shirtsleeve, considering this. On one hand, he really doesn't want to clamber down to the bottom bunk just to swap body heat with a kid he met less than six hours ago while he's still licking old wounds. On the other, his chest still feels strangely heavy like he might start crying again, which is weird. He's been prone to bouts of feeling sorry for himself, sure — ironically those moments typically come when he actually has a roof over his head, rather than not — but not like this. In front of other people. Living on the streets, being caught crying can be dangerous; here on Freddy's top bunk, it's just kind of embarrassing.

Then again, he'd been sure Freddy was  _asleep_.

So he kicks his legs over the side of the bed — if only to prove that he hadn't been crying, even though he's pretty sure he's still got tears drying on his cheeks — and hops down gracelessly, knocking Freddy's crutch into the desk in the process. His knee smarts, and the crutch clatters to the floor. The sharp smack of metal against wood feels world-shatteringly loud in the dark, sleepy house, the one that just a few hours ago was thrumming with warm yellow light and seven distinct voices all talking over one another over plates of hardly-edible tofurkey.

"Careful." Freddy eases up onto his elbows, grumbling as if he didn't just fucking invite Billy down here in the first place. "I need that to  _walk_."

"No shit," Billy says under his breath, rubbing his fingers across the already-dying spot of pain in his leg. He scrabbles around in the dark until his fingers close around the crutch, propping it carefully against the bedpost. He's never had so many people in one house to try to not wake up before.

Straightening up, he stands at the edge of Freddy's bed, hands hanging limply at his sides. The whole thing seems a lot more awkward now that he's actually down here, and Billy is mulling over the pros of grabbing his shoes and making a run for it  _now_  instead of later when Freddy snaps his fingers in front of his face. Or tries to — his fingers make a quiet sort of half-popping sound. He can't snap. Billy bites the inside of his cheek.

"Well?" Freddy asks, gesturing to the almost insultingly small amount of space he's provided next to him on the bed.

"Gee, thanks," Billy mumbles, but he awkwardly clambers in next to Freddy anyway. He forgoes crawling under the covers for now, even though his toes are freezing, instead settling with his legs on top of the comforter Freddy has snugged around himself.

They're both left in uncomfortable, heavy silence, staring at the bottom of Billy's own bunk. Billy finds himself wondering who else slept in that bed before him. Someone must have, at one point. They can't all have decided the stay. Billy wonders if they ran away, too. If Freddy is used to a revolving door of flighty kids taking up the space above him for a night or two. He considers asking, then thinks better of it.

"Woah, slow down there, buddy, I'm having trouble keeping up with you," Freddy says, snickering. One of his bony elbows catches Billy in between the ribs. Billy jerks away. He's upset and annoyed and a spot on his calf that he can't reach from this angle is starting to itch, and he doesn't necessarily have any qualms with violence against foster siblings, even if Freddy doesn't deserve it.

Once, years ago, Billy had gotten into it with the biological son of Foster Parents 11 and 12 — the kid was at least four years Billy's senior and had cornered him his own bedroom, threatened to make his life a living hell for stealing his parents.  _Stealing them._ As if Billy had wanted to be there in the first place. He'd wound up cutting his knuckles on the stupid kid's teeth and had his own head cracked against the bedpost in return. They had wanted him, before that, but by the time the stitches came out, there was already a new set of smiling faces standing over his bedside and telling him he could call them  _mom and dad._ Billy can't remember any of their names. He's sure they don't remember his either, and that's fine.

The only person who Billy needs to remember name is his real mom, and she's out there. He thinks of his notebook sitting in the wastebasket in the bathroom. Over seventy different Batsons, seventy front doors from the slums to finely-decorated porches. Seventy different dead ends. A lump forms in his throat.

"Hey," Freddy says, a little softer this time, like he can sense the emotion brewing in Billy's own chest and is trying to stop it before this gets infinitely more awkward for them both. "If you're not gonna let me pick your brain then at least allow me to entertain you with the story of my first night under this very roof, yeah?"

"You're just gonna tell me anyway," Billy mutters, still trying to blink away tears.

"You learn fast," acknowledges Freddy. He wrinkles his nose when he smiles, Billy realizes, and it's almost endearing.  _Almost_. "Anyway, first night, right? So I'm sitting in the back of this social worker's car blubbering like a baby  _already_ , because — and don't laugh, okay, this is serious and I'm still really upset about it — I remembered I'd left this limited edition Green Lantern comic back at my old place. And of course they weren't gonna let me go back to get it, not for a stupid comic, you know, they didn't call it that but they must've been thinking it, right? But it was  _limited edition_ , only a hundred printed copies available in the entire world. The  _entire world,_  Billy, and...hey, I told you not to laugh!"

"I'm not laughing," Billy denies quickly, even as he shakes with it.

"You're a worse liar than Darla," Freddy huffs. He rolls his eyes. "Whatever. Anyway, moving on. So we pull up to this very house, and through my Lantern-less misery I remember thinking it looked big enough to be a castle or something." He worries his lip between his teeth. "I still do, sometimes."

"How many of them were here already?" Billy asks, nodding towards the door as if the rest of his new foster siblings are going to materialize before it. "When you got here, I mean."

"Mary, Pedro, Eugene. Darla came a little later." Billy takes mental note of the way their names turn up the corners of Freddy's mouth, and almost feels sorry for him, how clearly attached he is to this house of make believe. "So I'm getting out of the car and everyone comes running out of the house like I'm the kid from Home Alone being reunited with his family.

And I'm standing there trying to look presentable while this social worker Diane is helping get my stuff out of the back, and Eugene's eyes get all huge when he sees my Superman backpack, and he's like,  _'How can you be a Superman fan when Superman is_ dead _?'_ "

"And you started crying again, didn't you?"

"Bingo." Freddy holds up his hands defensively. "It was a dark time for everyone, okay?"

Billy shrugs microscopically, his shoulder brushing Freddy's. "No comment."

The thing is, Billy doesn't actually care, because Superman hasn't done any more for him than he did during his short-lived stint in death. No caped crusaders have ever wandered by offering to help him find his mom. Whatever help is there, up in the sky, has never been looking out for him. And he's not bitter about it, not really. It's just hard to feel as...affected by all of it as Freddy does.

"So lots of crying. Dead superheroes. No bad vegan dinner, though."

That makes Freddy laugh. "Nah, no bad vegan dinner. But we had chocolate cake for dessert and I played Injustice with Eugene. I'm pretty sure he let me win. Then I went to take a shower, cried a lot more, and spent the rest of the night with Mary and Rosa taking turns peeking in on me every five minutes to make sure I was okay."

"And were you?"

"Not for like...the rest of the week. But after that, yeah." Freddy is smiling now, a real one with teeth that makes Billy's chest ache for that kind of contentment. "After that was good."

"Wow," Billy muses, trying to swallow his sorrow back down. He'd just gotten around to feeling better; no use in submerging himself in self-pity again tonight. "Sounds like your homecoming was even better than mine." The word homecoming tastes bitter, because it isn't true. Not for him. Not yet. It won't be his until he finds his mom, but when he does, maybe it will finally melt on his tongue like sugar syrup while she holds him.

"Crippled kid perks," Freddy clarifies, smirking at him. "Can't say the benefits totally outweigh the price of admission, but I can't exactly get a refund, right?"

Billy chews his lip, turning his head microscopically to look at Freddy, who looks nothing but pleased with himself, corners of his mouth still turned up. Billy is left to assume these kind of self-deprecating remarks are typical for him.

"So your leg, it's -"

Freddy finishes for him, "Chronic."

"Oh." Billy lets out a short breath through his nose and keeps his eyes fixed on a giraffe-shaped woodstain in the bunk frame above him. Chronic. He wonders what that word tastes like on Freddy's own tongue, if it carries the same ugly bite that  _home_ does for him. "That sucks." He doesn't know why he doesn't say sorry. That would be, like, a decent and appropriate thing to say, and yet.

"Yup," Freddy agrees, popping the  _p_ like a bubblegum smack. If he's offended, he doesn't show it. In fact, he seems almost pleasantly surprised; Billy thinks maybe he's had enough people cooing at him like he's an injured puppy, offering up their condolences. "I think you'll like it here," he adds quietly, almost intimidated like he's afraid Billy will either ice him out or turn on him for it. Billy realizes he hasn't exactly given him reason to believe he won't. "Really. I haven't been to any other foster homes before this but, um. This one's pretty good."

"I think I've got you beat there," Billy says, tucking a half-smile into his own shoulder; he realizes Freddy has turned onto his side to face him, and surprises himself by doing the same. He flexes his cold toes but still doesn't move to pull the comforter over himself. It feels —  _intrusive_ , almost, when Freddy has just let his love for this house and this family practically bleed all over the mattress and Billy doesn't plan on staying past the end of the week.

"Yeah, I know," Freddy answers, clarifying when Billy gives him a pointed glance, "Victor and Rosa told us before you got here. You know, ' _don't scare your new brother, he's..._ impulsive.'"

"Impulsive," Billy snorts. "Yeah, okay."

"I mean, were they wrong?"

Billy stays quiet, gaze trained on the Cyborg logo printed on Freddy's shirt, rolling around words in his mouth he'd like to use for himself instead of  _impulsive_. Maybe  _dedicated_.  _Lonely_.  _Lost_.  _Searching_. Always, always  _searching_.

What he says instead is, "I guess not." He rolls onto his other side, away from Freddy, suddenly feeling way too vulnerable, way too exposed, like Freddy is peeling away all his feigned roughness with just his eyes. He comes face to face with a sticker of Superman's crest slapped to the inside of the bedpost. "Why am I constantly coming face-to-face with this stupid  _S_?" Billy's all out of bite; now he just sounds as tired as he feels.

"On his planet it means  _hope_ ," Freddy corrects. Billy remembers his words from earlier:  _You more of a Supes guy? Me, too_. He starts to understand, with a slow sort of melancholy, why Freddy is so fascinated by the extraordinary. What he's looking for is something unattainable. Then again, according to his case worker, what Billy's looking for is too. 

"Yeah, okay.  _Hope._ " He yawns around the word, feels his eyes start to droop.

"Yes, Billy." Freddy's voice sounds like it's coming from somewhere on high as sleep finally starts to nudge at the corners of his mind. The next part, he's not sure if he's made up entirely, but the moment he hears it he knows he won't remember it come morning: "As in, I really  _hope_ you'll stay. Get it, ha-ha, great pun, Freddy..."

The words barely register before sleep swallows him whole. Billy dreams of the usual: his mother's hands, a chintzy carnival prize, the grooves of park benches pressed up against his ribs, and something new — a boy with curls, nose crinkled in laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> yeehaw i love these soft kiddos so much....i'm p sure the rebirth storyline dictates that freddy was the first foster kid to be part of the vasquez family but the movie didnt clarify and fuck canon anyway so it's open season ladies!!
> 
> (also. zachary levi if you're reading this i am free next thursday night and would like to hang out. please respond to this and then hang out with me next thursday when i am free)


End file.
